(now rare outside of set phrases) Pertaining to those arts and sciences the study of which was considered "worthy of a free man" (as opposed to servile, vocational, mechanical); worthy, befitting a gentleman.

Americans remain enamored with Europe's ability to produce the consequential thought for America. It was the same in nearly every liberal field. Education sought its roots in such Europeans as Froebel, Frobenius, and Rousseau. Political science tried to connect to Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Nietzsche, Machiavelli, and Otto von Bismarck, for instance. Economics copied the thought of Adam Smith, […]

Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

For this reason a liberal amount of piping should be used. If a liberal supply of piping is provided at first, the first cost will of course be greater, but the extra expenditure is called for but once.

2009, R. Furman Kenney, Chesterville: The Village at the End of the Road (ISBN 1438960344), page 102:

The result was usually that such helpers got a liberal sprinkling of mud over their clothing.

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